Memory 016

The town, Doken, was a small and peaceful one. Many people found it boring to stay at, however, for me, there was a certain charm to it that makes me love it. Maybe my opinion is biased due to me living almost all my childhood there but wouldn’t the opinion of someone living here most their life be the most accurate?

Yet, Monster was the polar opposite to me, instead, he used to complain about how small the place was, and though he loved the tranquillity of it, he had always imagined himself living in a bigger town. One of his aspiration, when we were young, was to live in the next town over which was considered more like a city than a town.

However, that town, Dona, had more human residence than mutants; the complete opposite of Doken. When I stated that fact to Monster, worried that he might not fit in at that type of place, he would often tease me saying if I, a human, could fit in here then he also would be able to fit in there.

When I saw how confident he looked I began to somewhat believe him, and who would’ve known that now that he’s older he stayed true to his word and is now currently living there and also working in a human-orientated city.

As for me I returned back to the town I love, married the girl I love and found a job suited to well support my lifestyle.

A simple common life that didn’t really have anything worth noting. I never did have those big dreams when I was a child and I never developed any along the way but I remember Monster having several of them.

Monster was a big lump of confidence and because of his charm on connecting with people I’ve always thought that he would go far in life. So even when he blurted out his dreams when we were little I often would believe he would achieve it, even if it was ridiculous.

There was a certain memory back when we were on our last year of middle school. We were laying on a little hill near our home, and we were waiting for the sunset to come before heading back home. At that time we were talking about our future.

Monster began to spout out his dream to me. With a look that tried to act cool and mysterious, he closed his eyes on the hill and told me, “Cloud in the future I’m going to change the world.”

“I heard that out there humans and monsters aren’t on good terms, but I’ll change it.” Reaching out his hands towards the sky he shamelessly looks towards me with arrogance.

“It will be a world of Monster and Cloud.”

Embarrassing right? Yet, being another childish middle schooler, who often read those novels with those teenage heroes, I had thought that Monster was acting pretty cool just like the characters in the novels. So I responded with a thumbs up and a face filled with total respect.

“Sweet. I think you got this bro.” I idiotically replied.

Man were we delusional kids back then.

Yet sometimes you often wish that those little delusions you had as a kid could often come true.

Memory 017

“You’re back.”

My father called out to me after seeing me enter the house.

Unlike when I was little he was now very old and the energy he had back then was now reduced to a minimum. Yet he remained like when I first met him; cheerfully smiling and trying his best to make the environment welcoming.

“Yeah just got off work, how’s mother?”

With a little frown, my father couldn’t help but sigh. “Nothing different, she’s still worried about Monster. We haven’t been able to contact him much after the news, he said he was busy but shouldn’t he try to at least contact us?”

Awkwardly I could only scratch my head as I gave out the same response as yesterday. “Well… you know Monster, he is pretty bad at keeping contact.”

“Maybe it was a bad idea to have him work in Dona.” Looking unsatisfied my father began to complain about his past decision.

With a heavy sigh, I could only listen to his complaints as he led me to the living room.

“How’s the situation?”

After having his fill of complaints he switched towards a more serious tone as he whispered his words.

“What do you mean?”

“Tsk, you know what I mean… how’re the others treating you?”

“Ah… nothing different, the people at work is acting normal. Though I could see other at the street being wary, but I’m sure everyone’s just feeling cautious.”

Though I tried to ease my father’s worries by giving him a positive response he seemed to have picked up the vague answer and used his imagination on a more negative idea.

“Damn radicals! Those extremist are always causing problems for no good reason.”

I couldn’t help but agree to his words but I didn’t want the conversation to continue on. I didn’t like to look at my father being angry, he was supposed to be a care-free person that would go about his day joking about.

In fact, I didn’t like the whole situation as of now; with my mother drowning in worries and the culprit Monster being so hard to contact, it really stresses me out.

I look at the news being shown on the TV and I can’t help but frown.

“With the negotiation being broken, both country seems to be at the state of a cold war…”

“Many mutants and humans around the world are now worried about whether a war will emerge between the two countries representing each race…”

“Terror attack has become more frequent as extremist groups are now becoming more and more violent with their stance on the situation…”

“Almost 20 humans killed in the recent bombing, the bomber was a mutant who…”

I couldn’t listen to it anymore so I change the TV towards the cartoon channel which me and Monster used to love.

It was showing a rerun of Monster’s favorite show back when we were kids. It was the one that brought about his big dream. A show about a hero and a demon king’s journey in changing the world together.

Smiling at the show I often remembered how he called dibs on being the hero and I would be left to have the demon king as my character for the show. I remembered how sometimes we would try to act out some parts of the show together. Back then it was simpler times, and now things had changed.

Remembering Monster’s childish dream, I can’t help but hopefully wish it would come true.

Like I said before, the greatest weapon you could ever hold is the power to understand. The world right now seems to have misunderstood each other.

Hopefully, as I write this little biography of ours, I hope people would come to understand that everyone’s world, although different, has a bit of Monster and Cloud in it.